Federal judges have now annulled five of seven suspension orders that have delayed the start of construction at the Santa Lucía airport.
A judge of the Fifth Collegiate Tribunal in Mexico City overturned one suspension order on Tuesday and judges of the 10th Collegiate Tribunal rescinded four more on Thursday.
All of the repealed court orders were obtained by the #NoMásDerroches (No More Waste) collective, which has filed close to 150 injunction requests against the US $4.8-billion project at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base in México state.
The collective said in a statement that two judges of the 10th Collegiate Tribunal voted in favor of annulling the suspension orders that were reviewed yesterday, while one opposed their revocation.
The judge who voted against the repeal of the injunctions, #NoMásDerroches said, was Jorge Arturo Camero Ocampo.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar announced on Thursday that the Federal Judiciary Council had suspended Camero over questionable financial dealings, which President López Obrador said included receiving an 80-million-peso bank deposit.
The #NoMásDerroches collective, a group made up of civil society organizations, law firms and individual citizens, said the “removal” of the judge “precisely hours after he decided to vote against” the annulment of the suspension orders was proof of pressure being exercised by the federal government for the airport issue to be “resolved according to its interests.”
The collective called on the Supreme Court to hear the remainder of the government’s applications to revoke the suspension orders it has obtained to ensure that the rulings are impartial and in “strict accordance with the law.”
“Today more than ever the independence of the federal judicial power and the principle of the separation of powers are essential for the preservation of the rule of law,” the group said.
“. . . We appeal to the Supreme Court to promptly resolve . . . this case of national importance.”
President López Obrador claims that the legal opposition to the Santa Lucía airport is politically motivated and amounts to “legal sabotage.”
He said this week that the government is ready to begin construction of the airport as soon as all the injunctions against it have been lifted.
Source: El Financiero (sp)
